Sixties
Citypresents
a wide-ranging series of
articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic
60s music paper Mersey
Beat

A leading
Sixties Liverpool group that was formed from Bob Evans & The Five Shillings
(at one time known as Bob’s Vegas Five). Bob Evans, on vocals/drums was
responsible for changing the group's name to The Undertakers and, by 1961,
they were appearing almost seven nights a week at venues including the
OPB (Orrell Park Ballroom), the Jive Hive, Riverpark Ballroom, the Majestic,
Bowaters and the Shell Club. The other members were Jimmy McManus (vocals),
Chris Huston (lead), Dave Cooper (bass), Geoff Nugent (solo guitar) and
Brian Jones (alto/tenor).

They began their
performances, dressed in black, playing a rendition of the ‘Death March.’
Initially they had nicknames: Chris was Shine, George was Trad, Davy was
Mush, Brian was Boots, Jimmy was Spam and Bob was Big Bow. Bugs Pemberton
joined in September 1962, when Bob Evans entered hospital for an operation,
and by that time Jackie Lomax, known as Max, had also joined.

The band was influenced by Fats Domino, Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry,
although Chris commented: “We have often been accused of copying The Beatles.
I admit that at first we were tempted to imitate their style but now we
have a style of our own which is completely original.”

They
made their second trip to Germany in January 1963, to spend five weeks at
the Star Club, and were known in Hamburg as Die Totengraber (The Gravediggers).
The group appeared on numerous bills with The Beatles, including ‘Operation
Big Beat 3’ at the Tower Ballroom on Friday 29th June 1962. They also appeared
with them at the Rialto Ballroom on Thursday 11th October 1962 in a ‘Rock
& Twist Spectacular,’ which was part of the ballroom’s thirty-fifth anniversary
celebrations and again, the following day, on the Tower Ballroom bill topped
by Little Richard.

Groups knew what music youngsters wanted to hear but A&R men in London,
some of them with no experience of how to appeal to teenagers, insisted
on telling the groups what to record. The Undertakers signed to Pye and
were under the wing of a leading A&R man, Tony Hatch. However, although
they wanted ‘Mashed Potatoes’ to be the A-side of their debut disc, the
record company made it the B side.

They next wanted ‘Money’ to be the‘A’ side of their second release, but
the company relegated it as the B side to ‘What About Us?’.
A Southern group, Bern Elliott & The Fenmen, heard the Searchers playing
‘Money’ and recorded it, resulting in a chart hit for them. Hatch then said
that they could choose their own A-side and they picked ‘Just A Little Bit’,
which entered the Top 50.

They weren’t pleased when Pye instructed them to change their image, drop
the undertakers’ dress and coffin-shaped amplifiers and prune their name
to the ‘Takers. They recorded ‘If you Don’t Come Back’ but once the sales
had started to move, the annual holiday for the record plant intervened
and no more copies were pressed, making it impossible for it to have any
chart placing.

Disillusioned,
they tried their luck in America, although Geoff Nugent remained in Liverpool.
Unreleased material by the group from that time included ‘Hold On, I’m
A-Comin’’, ‘My Babe’, ‘Watch Your Step’ and ‘What’s So Good About Goodbye?’
However, an excellent 21-track CD ‘The Undertakers Unearthed’ was issued
on Big Beat UK on 1st January 1996.

Jackie Lomax went on
to become an Apple artist but didn’t find success on record and moved
to Los Angeles where he lives, records and performs, although he returned
to Liverpool in August and September 2006 for a series of Undertakers
reunion performances. His most recent album is ‘The Ballad of Liverpool
Slim.’ Chris became a successful record producer, later began designing
recording studios and is now living in Nashville.

Brian Jones went on to play with various bands, including Gary Glitter’s
Glitter Band, although reports that he played on ‘You Know My Name (Look
Up The Number)’ on the B side of The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ are untrue –
that was Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Geoff Nugent still appears on Merseyside leading Geoff Nugent’s Undertakers…and
thereby hangs a tale. Another group, without a single member of the original
outfit, now has the rights to the name 'The Undertakers'. Geoff Nugent
challenged them in court, but even though he is an original member of
the group, he lost the case and has to call his band Geoff Nugent’s Undertakers!

Bill
Harryattended
the Liverpool College of Art with Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon and made
the arrangements for Brian Epstein to visit The Cavern, where he saw The
Beatles for the first time. Bill was a member of 'The Dissenters' and the
founder and editor of 'Mersey Beat', the iconic weekly music newspaper
that documented the early Sixties music scene in the Liverpool area and
is possibly best known for being the first periodical to feature a local
band called 'The Beatles'. He has worked as a high powered publicist, doing
PR for acts such as Suzi Quatro, Free, The Arrows and Hot Chocolate and
has managed press campaigns for record labels such as CBS, EMI, Polydor.
Bill is the critically acclaimed author of a large number of books about
The Beatles and the 60s era including 'The Beatles Who's Who', 'The Best
Years of the Beatles' and the Fab Four's 'Encyclopedia' series. He has appeared
on 'Good Morning America' and has received a Gold Award from the British
Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.